Flaming Scottish Fleas

It's been a bit of a week for new flea circuses in the directory, the latest entry is Circus Maximus from Scotland.



Mamamia and Dr. Flea (Maria & Michael Start) present a traditional Flea Circus of 10 acts.

These two automata builders and experts have created a portable suitcased based circus ring with carosel, tightrope, fire eating fleas and a cannon for the finale.

Maria Fernanda Cardoso

One of the most famous recent flea trainers was Colombian artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso who travelled the globe in the 1990s with her flea circus performance. The Tate purchased her props and circus in 2007 and have it in their archives.



Her performances include:

• San Francisco Exploratorium 1996
• Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia 1996
• New Museum, New York 1998
• George Pompidue 1998
• Sydney Opera House 2000

The website has recently been updated with photos and videos of the flea circus.

Flea Circus from Holland

The latest Flea Circus performer to be added into the Flea Circus Directory is Dr. Q from the Netherlands with his Vlooien Circus. The cart based performance have some excellent acts including tightrope walking, balancing on a ball and a flaming hoop jump.

Train too small for fleas

David Smith has built a trainset that we believe would be too small even for fleas. This 1:35,000 scale train runs through a scenic countryside just 2cm across.



Thanks to Lee Clarke and Sean Fallon from Gizmondo for the link

The Snow Flea

Opening on November 3rd at Theatre Massalia, Marseille, Buchinger's Boot Marionettes present "La Puce de Neige" ("The Snow Flea"), a fantastical puppet-opera by Patrick Sims, with original musical score by Ergo Phizmiz.

Fleas Wanted

The Flea Circus Research Library recieves regular emails from people looking for real fleas for different purposes from testing new optical equipment to TV shows.

Today's email was a little different in that Melissa was looking for a model flea.
A few years back Disney and Pixar made a PT Flea character from the Bugs Life film. The model opens up to reveal the acts including a cannon and a tightrope act.



If anyone has one of these to donate or sell, please get in touch and I'll pass your details on to Melissa.

Fleas in the Bible

Fleas have been around a long time, they are even mentioned in the Bible. When David is being pursued by King Saul he compares himself to a flea.

1 Samuel 26:20b
“For the king of Israel has come out to seek a flea, as when one hunts a partridge in the mountains.”

The following links mention the flea as "pa'-rosh" and "barghut" so perhaps there's some more flea translations to be added to the Flea Circus Research Library Language of Fleas page.